Towards a Circular Economy in Jordan: Selecting Organic Waste Treatment Options Using a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach

Abstract

Solid waste management in Jordan is still following a linear model, where more than 90% of solid waste, including organic waste, is collected and disposed into landfills. Such practices are not sustainable and may lead to adverse public health and environmental impacts. Therefore, there is a pressing need to look for alternative organic waste management by adopting circular economy principles through which the adverse impacts are minimized and the benefits from the resources are maximized. The main objective of this study is to select the appropriate treatment technology for organic solid waste management in Jordan. To achieve this objective, an analytical hierarchy process was used as a decision making tool. A hierarchy model that consists of four levels was employed with 3 main criteria and 10 sub-criteria to assess 4 alternatives of organic waste treatment. Based on the experts’ opinions and the pairwise comparison, the AHP model results showed that the environmental and public health criterion is the most important. On the other hand, the most sustainable treatment option of the organic waste treatment is composting with a weight of 0.373, followed by landfilling with a weight of 0.203. Anaerobic digestion ranked third as an alternative, with a weight of 0.201, while the least-preferred treatment technology was found to be the mechanical biological treatment, with a weight of 0.193. Sensitivity analysis based on varying the main criteria weights under different scenarios showed the robustness of the AHP model, where composting continued to be the first ranked under most of the considered scenarios. Since the national solid waste management strategy is currently subject to review, the findings of the current study provide a valuable information for the decision makers in Jordan to update their strategic plans and move towards a circular economy option.

1. Introduction

In a world with changing climate and limited natural resources, solid waste generation and management issues are gaining more attention. On a global level, solid waste is responsible for approximately 5% of the total greenhouse gasses emissions into the atmosphere [1]. Historically, there is a positive correlation between the quantity of solid waste generated by a certain society and the progress of the society [2]. Population increase, improvement in lifestyle, and the expansion of urban areas have led to continuous increases in solid waste [3]. In 2016, the world generated about 2.1 billion tons of solid waste; this amount is expected to increase to 2.59 billion tones by 2030 and will jump to 3.4 billion tones in 2050 [4].

In Jordan, about 3.7 million tons of municipal solid waste is generated annually with an annual increase of 5%. About 60% of the generated waste is food waste [5]. As is the case in most developing countries, solid waste management in Jordan is still following the linear economy model, where about 90% of the solid waste is disposed into landfill [6]. Such practices are not sustainable and lead to adverse environmental, public health, and economic impacts [7].

Realizing such facts, the Jordanian government recently issued an ambitious package of regulations and policies to pave the way to move from linear towards circular economy strategies [8]. One of the major steps in this direction was the ratification of the National Solid Waste Management Strategy in 2015. The national strategy aims to adopt the circular economy principles through enhancing the reuse, recycling, and recovery of materials from the solid waste stream. According to the launched strategy, the building and operation of various material recovery and composting plants was aimed to be achieved by the year 2025. Due to many reasons, including the influxes of refugees from nearby Syria [9], a lack of financial resources, and the emergence of COVID-19, many of the projects recommended by the strategy, including the composting plants, have not found their way to implementation. Hence, currently, the national strategy is being subjected to review and update. Because 60% of the total generated solid waste in Jordan is organics, it is important to select a treatment option that suits the local circumstances in the country. Selecting such an option is subject to multiple and sometime conflicting criteria [10]; multi-criteria analysis could assist in this selection [11].

By reviewing published articles that used multi-criteria decision analysis (MDA) techniques in municipal solid waste management, Ref. [12] reported that 33 articles out of 68 used the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) technique for decision making. Therefore, due to its simplicity and robustness in selection alternatives based on multiple criteria [13], this study used analytical hierarchy process (AHP) as a tool for decision making to select the best alternative of organic waste treatment method in Jordan. The AHP sets the priorities of various alternatives based on experts’ opinions. It involves pairwise comparisons to prioritize criteria and alternatives based on their importance, and it eventually decides on the most appropriate alternative [14].

Recently, several studies employed AHP in selecting the most appropriate technology for organic waste treatment. Ref. [15] used technical, environmental, economic, and social criteria to select appropriate composting technology in a university campus in Malysia. Another study by [16] employed AHP to determine the most preferable organic waste treatment in small cities in Indonesia. Controlled landfilling and composting were the treatment processes that ranked in first place, followed by incineration and mechanical biological treatment. To select the food waste treatment option, Ref. [17] used spherical fuzzy AHP. Based on 4 criteria and 13 sub-criteria, the study concluded that composting is the preferred option, followed by anaerobic digestion, landfilling, and incineration. Ref. [18] employed an AHP decision framework for ranking both technical and nontechnical barriers that are facing the biogas technology adoption in rural areas of India. The study identified the economic barrier as being the most dominant one that hinders the use of organic waste to produce biogas on the household level.

To prioritize alternatives of recovering useful products from organic waste (Fruit and vegetable waste), Ref. [19] used a four-level hierarchy model. The alternatives subjected to comparison were turning waste into energy by making pellets, the plasma treatment process, and biological treatment based on composting and biogas production. The study identified biogas as being the most preferable option, followed by plasma and pellets. The least preferable option was composting. As for Jordan, AHP has been adopted to make a decision in several areas of solid waste management; for example, to select an extended producer responsibility (EPR) system for Jordan [20], for selecting the best waste-to-energy technology [21], for solid waste management [22], and for the selection of the landfill site [23]. However, none of the studies tackled the issue of using a multi-criteria decision-making process like AHP in selecting organic waste treatment to move towards a circular economy. Therefore, the current study is attempting to bridge this research gap.

Unless properly managed, organic waste may cause adverse environmental impacts [24]. To deal with the increasing amounts of organic waste generation and the associated increasing demand of water and energy, Ref. [25] reported that many countries around the world started adopting the circular economy as an approach to move towards a sustainable waste management system. Ref. [26] indicated that the circular economy may be considered as a beneficial approach, with less adverse environmental impacts for the management of food waste. Adopting circular economy options will lead to the reduction in virgin raw material consumption, waste production, and an improvement in material circularity by extending their useful life [27].

The main objective of the current study is to assess and compare various organic waste treatment technologies using AHP methodology to select an appropriate technology that suits the Jordanian circumstances. This will enable the planners to make informed decisions to enhance the adoption of the circular economy in the country. This is particularly important at the present time, since the Jordanian government has passed an ambitious package of regulations and policies and is currently updating the national solid waste strategy to promote the adoption of circular economy options [8].

2. Methodology

Selection of the most appropriate organic waste treatment process is not an easy or straight forward task [12]. Using a decision support system like AHP for the selection of the most appropriate treatment alternative is a common practice in the field of decision making. In this study, AHP that was developed by Saaty in the early 1970s as a multi-dimensional, multilevel, and multi-factorial decision support tool, was used to select the most appropriate organic waste treatment process for Jordan. The methodology followed in the study is presented in Figure 1.

To build on the progress achieved so far in this research area, a comprehensive literature review was conducted using various research data bases and search engines. After that, the process of structuring the hierarchy was started by identifying the study goal, criteria, sub-criteria, and treatment alternatives. The AHP hierarchy considered different alternatives and assessed them in relation to achieving the goal under a combination of multi-criteria. Figure 2 illustrates the architecture of the four-level hierarchy, which consists of the goal (selection the most appropriate organic waste treatment technology for Jordan), three criteria, socio-economic, environmental and health, technical criteria, ten sub-criteria, and four organic waste treatment alternatives. The treatment options included landfilling, composting, anaerobic digestion, and mechanical biological treatment.

Table 1. Description of the organic waste treatment alternatives used in the AHP analysis.

Organic Waste Treatment Alternative	Description
Landfilling	This option is the most common and traditional method of waste management in Jordan and other developing countries. However, it is considered unsustainable due to greenhouse gas emissions and leachate production.
Composting	This is a process of converting the organic fraction of the waste under aerobic conditions into humus-like material that can be utilized as a soil conditioner or as a fertilizer. Composting contributes to improve soil fertility, mitigates greenhouse gas emissions, and reduces the need for landfilling.
Anaerobic digestion	It is a process in which organic waste decomposes in a reactor under anaerobic conditions. This process produces methane gas, which can be utilized to generate bioenergy. It mitigates greenhouse gasses and produces clean energy.
Mechanical Biological Treatment	This process includes mechanical and biological techniques, where organic materials are separated from the solid waste stream to produce compost, while materials with high heat content are utilized to produce refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and other materials like metals can be recycled. As a result, greenhouse gasses can be mitigated and less landfill space will be needed, while useful products like compost, recyclables, and energy can be obtained.

describes the organic waste treatment alternatives that were considered in the AHP analysis, while

Table 2. Description of the criteria and sub-criteria used in the AHP analysis.

Criteria	SUB-Criteria	Description
Environmental and health	Health risk	Evaluation of different organic waste management practices on human health and the environment. This includes public health and occupational health, as well as the emissions from the treatment of organic waste and the amount of waste that can be recycled.
	Emissions
	Circularity level
Technical	Availability of know-how	The technical criterion includes the availability of know-how and experienced personnel to operate and maintain the treatment technology, as well as the complexity and whether such a technology is a well-established one.
	Sophistication of technology
	Technology maturity
Socio-economic	Public acceptance	Under the socio economic criteria, the public acceptance of the technology and the technology’s potential to create green jobs are issues of concern. On the other hand, from an economic point of view, the magnitude of investment capital and the operation and maintenance cost are important factors that have an impact on the selection of the treatment technology.
	Job creation
	Capital cost
	Operation and maintenance cost

elaborates on the criteria and sub-criteria used in the analysis.

The AHP analysis is based on soliciting expert opinions, according to which pairwise comparison matrices of the criteria and sub-criteria to achieve the goal were developed. In AHP analysis, different researchers solicited opinions from different numbers of experts. For example, Ref. [28] developed an AHP model to select a waste-to-energy option in Bangladesh by soliciting the opinion of only 4 experts. In another study conducted by [29] to select the most appropriate waste-to-energy technology for Moscow city, 16 experts’ opinions were solicited, while in another study conducted by [11], the authors themselves gave the weights when conducting the pairwise comparison. In the current study, 9 experts with different backgrounds from academia, research, governmental agencies, NGOs, and the private sector were interviewed to solicit their opinions. A special questionnaire with pair-wise matrices was prepared, where the experts asked to compare pairs of criteria and sub-criteria by giving them weights based on their relative importance. The weights were given based on a 1 to 9 scale that was developed by Saaty (1980) [30], as shown in

Table 3. Saaty’s pairwise comparison scale, 1–9 (Saaty, 1980) [30].

Degree of Importance	Definition	Explanation
1	Equally important	The row criteria are equally as important as the column criteria.
2	Slightly or maybe weak	The row criterion has slight or weak relative importance to the column criteria ranges.
3	Moderate importance	Weak importance of the row criterion over the column criterion.
4	Moderate plus	The row criteria’s relative importance to the column criterion is between weak and strong.
5	Strong importance	The row criteria are far more important than the column criteria.
6	Strong plus	The row criterion has a stronger and more evident significance than the column criterion.
7	Very strong!	The row requirement is more important than the column criterion.
8	Very, very strong	The row criterions are between very important and extremely important relative to the column criterion
9	Extreme importance	Row criteria are extremely important relative to column criteria.

.

To check the consistency of the experts’ opinions, judgments matrices were used to generate the priority vector by evaluating the consistency ratio (CR). The randomness in judgment was assessed by the consistency ratio in Equation (1):

$$\mathrm{C}\mathrm{R}={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{C}\mathrm{I}}{\mathrm{R}\mathrm{I}}}$$

(1)

where CI is the consistency index and RI is the random index, which expresses the expected value of the CI corresponding to the order of matrices.

Table 4. Values of the random index based on the number of criteria.

n	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
RI	0	0	0.58	0.9	1.12	1.2	1.32	1.41	1.45	1.49

presents the values of the RI versus the number of criteria (n). In cases where the value of the consistency index is less than 10%, the expert judgment is considered consistent, otherwise the judgment is inconstant and has to be revised [31].

The consistency index CI can be calculated by Equation (2):

$$CI={\displaystyle \frac{{\lambda }_{max}-n}{(n-1)}}$$

(2)

where ${\lambda }_{max}$ is the principal eigenvalue.

After the consistency of the experts’ judgements were checked, the judgements were synthesized by aggregating their weights through different levels of hierarchy. This indicates the combined priorities and ranking of different organic waste treatment alternatives. The prioritization and ranking of various alternatives was achieved by using the Expert Choice software v.11.1

Multi-criteria decision-making processes like AHP are highly dependent on the experts’ judgments, where any change in the relative importance of various criteria can affect the ranking of the alternatives [31]. Hence, in this study, sensitivity analysis was conducted based on different scenarios to check the stability of the ranking results by identifying the most critical criteria that affect the change in ranking.

3. Results and Discussion

Since the circular economy system is not yet well established in Jordan, the recovery and recycling business is still in its early stages, where only 10% of the generated solid waste is recycled [6]. However, the recent development in the Jordanian regulatory and policy frameworks, like issuing the National Green Growth Plan 2021–2025, passing the Waste Management Framework Law, and updating the National Solid Waste Strategy, will pave the road towards the development of a waste management system that follows the principles of sustainability to move from a linear towards a circular economy model. A question remains as to which organic waste treatment technology is most suited to the local circumstance in Jordan, which the current study is trying to answer.

3.1. Relative Importance of Criteria

The first assessment involves a pairwise comparison of criteria towards achieving the goal. The weights given by the experts were subjected to a consistency ratio analysis in the pairwise comparison matrix. The consistency ratio was found to be 0.043, which is an acceptable value since it is less than 0.1. Figure 3 shows the calculated relative weights of each criterion, where the environmental and public health criterion ranked first with 0.455 weight, followed by the technical criterion with 0.426; the socio-economic criterion was found to be the least important, with 0.119. In selecting the best alternative for waste-to-energy conversion in Jordan, Ref. [21] reported that environmental criterion was ranked as the primary criterion. A study by [31] also indicated that the occupational health and safety has the highest priority as compared to other criteria. The highest-ranking criteria in the current study is also in agreement with the ranking reported by [16], who reported that for the selection of organic waste treatment technology, the environmental and technical (engineering) criteria had the highest ranking followed by economic and social criteria.

3.2. Weights of Sub-Criteria

Upon completion of the comparison between the main criteria to achieve the study goal, the next step deals with the comparison of the sub-criteria under the main criteria. As shown in Figure 4, under the environmental and health criterion, the emissions sub-criterion has ranked first, with a weight of 0.403. The health risk sub-criterion appeared to rank second, with a weight of 0.375, which is close to the weight of the emissions criterion, while circularity turned out to be the least-preferred one, with a weight of 0.222. This is not surprising, since the waste sector in Jordan is the second-highest emitting sector of greenhouse gasses after the energy sector. Compared to the global average greenhouse gas emissions of 5%, the waste sector in Jordan emits 12% of the total greenhouse emitted in the country, where more than 90% of the emitted methane comes from solid waste disposal into landfills [5]. Such emissions mainly originate from organic waste decomposition that comprises 60% of the waste stream, which renders the emissions issue a priority when selecting an organic waste treatment option. It must be emphasized that reducing the emissions from organic waste generated in the country will help Jordan to meet its commitments to international governance system under the Paris Agreement, according to which Jordan is committed to reduce its greenhouse gas production by 31% by the year 2030 [32].

Since emissions can pose a risk to public health, the two criteria have ranked first and second, with weights close to each other (0.403 and 0.375, respectively), as shown in Figure 4. Several researchers highlighted such a relationship between the emissions and risks to public health. Ref. [33] used a lifecycle assessment to determine the best scenario of integrated solid waste management in Jordan. The researchers indicated that there is a relationship between storing organic waste, even at home level, with skin irritation and internal microbial contamination. Ref. [34] reported that according to AHP analysis of solid waste management, the major risk to health is the exposure to bio aerosol and to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during the manual sorting of waste.

The lowest-ranked sub-criterion under the environmental and health criterion was circularity. A circular economy is a relatively new and emerging concept [35], which is not yet strongly established in a developing country like Jordan, where there is a weak market for recyclables (Abu Qdais et al., 2023) [36]. This explains the lower weight given by the experts to the circularity sub-criterion.

Figure 5 illustrates the results of ranking the sub-criteria under the technical criterion. It can be observed that the highest weight was for the know-how sub-criterion, with a weight of 0.539, and in second place was technology maturity, with a weight of 0.338. Sophistication of technology ranked the lowest, with a weight of 0.123. Know-how is an important issue in achieving sustainable waste management [37]. The availability of qualified and skilled staff that are equipped with know-how in running, operating, and maintaining the equipment that is used in the treatment of solid waste is a prerequisite to achieve success in the selected waste treatment technology. As is the case in many MENA countries, recycling initiatives have failed due to lack of know-how and skilled manpower [38,39]. This explains why know-how ranked first among other sub-criteria and suggests the need for capacity building programs to create a critical mass of experts that can lead the solid waste management scene in Jordan in a sustainable manner.

Regarding the technology maturity and sophistication of technology that ranked second and third as sub-criterion, respectively, it is important for a developing country like Jordan to adopt a well-established, robust, and low-tech treatment process. Considering the absence of qualified personnel with the required level of expertise, sophisticated technology may be a challenge that leads to the failure of solid waste treatment. An example of that from Jordan is the anaerobic digestion plant in Russaifah, which faced a lot of operational problems, after which the plant was closed in 2018 [40]. This is due to the absence of qualified staff to run and operate such high-tech, sophisticated technology.

Socio-economic status is significantly influencing the design of an effective solid waste management systems [41]. Figure 6 shows the rank of different sub-criteria under the socio-economic criterion. It can be seen that operation and maintenance cost criterion ranked first, with weight of 0.314, followed by public acceptance of the treatment technology, which ranked second with a weight of 0.283, while the capital cost had a weight of 0.231, and finally the job creation was the lowest-ranked criteria, with a weight of 0.172. In the last decade, Jordan has received a huge amount of financial support from international donors to cope with the deterioration that took place in solid waste management systems due to the influxes of Syrian refugees [6]. A huge part of these finances were directed to the construction of waste management facilities, such as transfer stations, sorting plants, and pilot composting plants. This implies that the municipalities did not invest (capital investment) in the construction of such facilities, while they became responsible for operating and maintaining them. Furthermore, municipalities in Jordan operate the solid waste system with subsidies, as the cost recovery reaches 50% in best case [8]. Therfore, the rank of capital cost was not that important compared to the operation and maintenance cost, which ranked first.

Public acceptance ranked second amongst the sub-criteria. This is because social acceptability is a factor that constrains the implementation of any treatment facility of solid waste [41]. Not in My Back Yard (NIMBY) syndrome is a common response, where people oppose certain types of solid waste treatment facilities near their residences [42]. For example, in 2017, public opposition prevented the construction of a sorting facility and transfer station near a residential community in the Jarash governorate, north Jordan.

Although the unemployment rate in Jordan is reaching 21.4% [43], the job creation sub-criterion ranked last. Introducing the social dimension of sustainability, which was assessed by the number of jobs created, Ref. [44] reported that the solid waste sector in Jordan does not satisfy the social inclusion criterion in job creation. The dominance of shame culture among Jordanians, who refuse to work in jobs related to solid waste management, explains why the job creation sub-criterion ranked lowest among other socio-economic criteria. Most municipal laborers that work in solid waste collection and transportation are expatriates.

3.3. Ranking of Treatment Alternatives

Various solid waste treatment alternatives are usually adopted to achieve the objectives of sustainable waste management, including protection of human health and environment, economic development, and meeting social and regulatory requirements [12]. Four treatment alternatives were considered in this study, namely landfilling, composting, anaerobic digestion, and mechanical biological treatment. The global weights of the treatment alternatives are presented in Figure 7. As can be observed, composting was ranked as the most preferable treatment alternative among other alternatives. This may be attributed to the fact that more than 90% of the Jordanian territory is desert land that lacks nutrients [45]. Applying the compost to the land will enhance its fertility by providing nutrients and enhancing the water holding capacity of the soil. Furthermore, solid waste composting will contribute to greenhouse mitigation potential. For example, Ref. [7] reported that the composting of organic waste in Jordan will lead to decrease of 2.65 kg of CO_2eq per kg of organic waste composted. These findings are also in line with what has been reported by [46], who indicated that composting is the most preferred alternative, while landfilling is the least-preferred one. The other three alternatives (landfilling, anaerobic digestion, and mechanical biological treatment), were given almost the same weights, with only slight differences. In Jordan, the National Waste Strategy [47] is calling for the adoption of circular economy options. Furthermore, the Solid Waste Frame Law No. 16 of the year 2020 indicated that certain fundamental principles shall be adopted in waste management, where among such principles are the polluter pays principle (PPP) and the principle of extended producer responsibility (EPR). In the case of the principles being adopted, the solid waste management practices will be diverted from disposal-driven practices, where the landfill alternative is the major option, into more sustainable options. The findings of this study are in line with what was reported by [22], who indicated that AHP analysis revealed that the optimal scenario for treatment of the mixed solid waste stream generated in Jordan is the combination of recycling with composting and sanitary landfilling. This will result in achieving the lowest greenhouse gas emissions, annual costs, and the creation of employment opportunities. Another study by [44], using the sustainability window analysis tool to assess the sustainability of the solid waste sector in Jordan, reported that the MBT composting is the most attractive and promising alternative for Jordan due to its low greenhouse emissions and cost. The study, however, did not consider the technical criterion in the selection process and used a different tool in the assessment, which explains the difference in findings with the current study, which used AHP analysis including the technical criterion in addition to socio-economic and environmental criteria. This raises the question of selecting the appropriate assessment tool with criteria and sub-criteria in such analysis.

3.4. Sensitivity Analysis

Changes in relative weights of the considered criteria may impact the selection process. Hence, to ensure the robustness of the obtained AHP model, sensitivity analyses were performed through increasing or decreasing the weight of individual criterion to assess how this change will influence the rank of the organic waste treatment alternative. If the alternative ranking is highly sensitive to small changes in the criteria weights, a review of the weights should be adopted. To assess the sensitivity of the ranked alternatives, four scenarios, including the baseline scenario, were considered.

Table 5. Scenarios that were considered in the sensitivity analysis.

Criteria	Criteria Weight for Each Scenario
	Baseline	Scenario 1	Scenario 2		Scenario 3
	-	-	A	B	A	B
Environmental and Health	45.5%	33.33%	28%	72%	65.5%	25.5%
Technical	42.6%	33.33%	62.6%	22.6%	19.5%	70%
Socio-Economic	11.9%	33.33%	9.4%	6.4%	15%	4.5%

illustrates the scenarios according to which the changes in alternatives rank and weights were assessed based on the change in criteria weights.

Using Expert Choice software, dynamic sensitivity graphs were developed by randomly changing the priorities given to the selection criteria and monitoring the resulting changes in the weights and rank of the various organic waste treatment alternatives. Based on the findings of the baseline scenario (Figure 7), the composting alternative is not affected by the environmental and socioeconomic criteria, while it is slightly vulnerable to the technical criteria. In contrast, landfilling is vulnerable to all three criteria, as it ranks as the least-preferred under environmental, first under technical, and third under the socioeconomic criteria. On the other hand, anaerobic digestion and mechanical biological treatment alternatives are slightly sensitive to socioeconomic criteria and have almost the same overall rank.

Under the first scenario, selection criteria were given equal weights. Figure 8 illustrates the alternative ranking of this scenario. Composting remains the best alternative under this set of criteria weights, while the mechanical biological treatment becomes the second priority and moves the landfilling to the third rank and keeps the anaerobic digestion as the least-preferred one. Despite this change in priorities of alternatives, the weights of the mechanical biological treatment, landfilling, and anaerobic digestion remain close to each other as is the case in the baseline scenario.

Figure 9A,B show the ranking of alternatives under the second scenario, where the weight of the technical criteria changes ± 20%. According to this scenario, composting remains the first preferred alternative. However, when decreasing the weight by 20% (Figure 9B), landfilling weight goes down from 32% to 17.50%. Similar ranking was obtained when, under the third scenario, the environmental criteria changed by ± 20% (Figure 10A,B). This implies that the composting alternative is not vulnerable to changes in weights of criteria, while landfilling is a sensitive option to both technical and environmental criteria. Such results indicate the robustness of the developed model, according to which composting is the best option for organic waste management in Jordan.

4. Conclusions and Recommendations

Organic waste is a basic component of municipal solid waste, which in developing countries accounts for more than 50% of the generated waste stream. Unless properly managed, it may cause several adverse health and environmental impacts. In this study, a systematic methodology to select the most appropriate organic waste treatment technology in Jordan was adopted. The study employed the AHP model as a tool which allows quick multiple-criteria and alternative ranking for decision making. A four-level hierarchy AHP model was constructed, and the experts’ opinions were solicited to construct pairwise matrices. The model considered three main criteria that included environmental and public health, technical, and socio economic. Under each main criterion, there is a group of sub-criteria that were used to assess and rank four alternatives of organic waste treatment which comprised landfilling, composting, anaerobic digestion, and mechanical biological treatment.

The study revealed that composting is the best treatment alternative followed by landfilling, anaerobic digestion, and biological mechanical treatment, respectively. Dynamic sensitivity analysis based on the random changing of the criteria weights showed that the developed model is a robust one, where the ranking of the composting alternative was not changed under most of the scenarios. Given the fact that the National Solid Waste Management Strategy of Jordan is currently under review, the results of the study will help decision makers to make informed decisions regarding the prioritization of organic waste treatment alternatives. Therefore, a recommendation is made to promote composting for the treatment of organic waste in Jordan by creating an enabling environment by developing proper legal and economic frameworks, so as to move from a linear to a circular economy. Future studies may consider other multi-criteria decision-making tools like Fuzzy and TOPSIS, or a combination of such tools.